Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Today my family and I donated and bought an XO Laptop. I can envision this being a world changing project so, yes I am glad to play a small roll in helping out, yes I am glad to help a total stranger in a strange land have one, yes I will deduct it on my taxes. Also, I am a geek at heart so, yes I'll keep checking my email for the UPS tracking number, yes I will be monitoring is progress on route to me, yes I will be taking pictures of the box being opening for the first time, yes I will stroke its smooth green exterior and its rubbery keyboard, and of course I am going to write some activities (XO for software applications) for it. As a parent, I am looking forward to watching how my kids interact with it and how we can us it has a fun and enlightening education tool.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

While watching the DARPA Grand Urban Challenge I solved a major problem in my life; bitter tea. A good cup of Earl Grey gets pretty bitter after steeping for more then 3 minutes. Quite often I get focused on my work and forget about the tea. Yes, a timer would work, but if I am focusing, it is normally for a reason and I do not want to break my concentration. The answer is to automate the steeping process. Here is my working prototype made from some spare robot parts and a USB servo controller from Parallax.